Organizing against the death penalty

The 32nd Annual Pan African Cultural Festival was hosted by the S.H.A.P.E. Community Center on May 28. The 98-degree heat didn’t cause a pause as families, activists, poets, musicians and dancers came to Our Park to celebrate and educate. Deejay Zin, host of Pacifica Radio’s “Sound of Soul,” kept the crowd moving with music and spoken word. Many tributes were paid to Gil Scott-Heron, the peoples’ revolutionary poet and musician, who had died the day before.

The Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement was one of the organizations that set up a table and dispensed information about the racist use of the death penalty. Photos of death row activists with Panthers United for Revolutionary Education framed the table. Mumia Abu-Jamal’s recent book, “Jailhouse Lawyers,” was the best seller. Information on the current wave of repression on Texas death row and the prisoners’ struggle against it was distributed. People were signed up to go before the Texas Prison Board to demand an end to the isolation and repression of death row prisoners.

— Report & photo by Gloria Rubac